Personal Chef To Go's Official Blog

October 2011

10/31/2011

Smashing pumpkins is a cliche, and only serves to make a mess. TP-ing a house isn’t a good Halloween prank because you can do it any time of the year. And vandalism is downright thuggish – the preference of the slightly imbalanced kid in the group who has to take everything too far. No, a Halloween prank is worth its weight in blood only if it scares the pirate pants off of someone or gives them the willies deep inside their skeleton. Of course, a funny gag played on trick-or-treaters is equally apropos on this night of heightened emotions. Boo!

1. Servin’ up over-easies

Handing out inappropriate “treats” to trick-or-treaters is an old classic, but one of the all-time best comes from Geoff “Peter Pan” Dodd (my uncle-in-law), who answers the door holding a spatula and a frying pan full of fried eggs, ready to drop one in the nearest treat bag.

2. Junk drawer treats

A variation on the terrible treat gag: Tell trick-or-treaters that you’re sorry but you’ve just run out of candy. Then say, “Well, wait a minute…I’m sure I can find something here that’s good…” Step away from the door briefly (and make voluble sounds of rummaging through a drawer or closet, if desired), coming back with “treats” like an old hairbrush or toothbrush, leftovers from the fridge, one dirty sock…anything you can think of. Be completely earnest and ask, “Who wants what?” to really make them squirm.

3. Living dead scarecrow

This timeless classic requires careful setup, but it scares the candy corn out of trick-or-treaters of all ages. Dress up as a scarecrow or other suitable character so your body and face are completely concealed. Slump down onto a hay bale next to your front door, as though you’re a dummy. When visitors have rung the bell and await the door opening, you come to life in any variety of ways: jump up and scream hideously, slump over and moan, say “hello” as though you’ve been waiting for them to arrive…anything will get a good reaction.

4. Table manners

Set up a card table on your front stoop or concrete stairs with a self-serve bowl of candy, and darken the house as though you’ve gone out trick-or-treating. Cover the table with a tablecloth, and post a sign that says, “Please take one piece only.” Have one person hide under the table while another is in the house secretly watching the bowl of candy, communicating to the table person via cell phone. When the watcher catches a kid taking a handful of candy (as many inevitably do), he signals to the table person, who yells out from his hiding place, “ONE PIECE ONLY!!!” or a similar admonishment. There’s also the option of jumping out from under the table to reveal a frightening getup.

5. Leaf of your senses

A simpler variation on the scarecrow: Hide inside a pile of leaves near the driveway or walkway leading to the front door, and jump out with a monster howl at the appropriate time. You can also scare them coming and going by having a friend hide inside a bagged trash can next to the leaf pile.

6. Rubber rat floating in toilet

This is a simple family prank for Halloween night. Please don’t try this unless everyone in the house has a healthy heart.

7. Thick glasses

A funny prank for trick-or-treaters: Answer the door wearing ridiculously thick-lensed glasses (costume or real) and pretend to have extremely poor eyesight, repeatedly missing the mark when trying to drop candy into the treat bags. You’ll be amazed at how many kids fall for this and try desperately to move their bags underneath your misguided hands.

8. Caramel onions

Another classic for family and friends: Wrap an apple-shaped onion in a caramel-apple wrap (available in grocery stores this time of year). Add a Popsicle stick, melt the caramel slightly in the microwave for an authentic look, and let it cool. Serve to the sucker of your choice. Credit for this idea goes to Safepranks.net.

9. Double surprise

This one requires some acting ability. Open the door for trick-or-treaters wearing a bathrobe and slippers, with your hair wrapped in a towel (for women). Act completely surprised by the commotion, saying, “Oh, geez! I forgot it was Halloween. I was just getting ready to take a bloodbath.” Follow this with whatever ghoulish behavior you choose—bare your teeth to reveal blood-stained fangs, pull the towel from your head to show a bloody skull cap pierced with a spike or saw blade, etc.

10. Sick at work

Show up looking terribly ill and complain of unusual and odious symptoms. Explain to coworkers in confidence that you knew you shouldn’t have come to work today but you just couldn’t miss the Halloween party. And scratch a lot.

10/26/2011

Halloween can be a pretty wasteful holiday if you let it, but it doesn’t have to be! And you don’t have to give up the spooky good times to keep it green.

From costumes and candy to decorations and clean-up, there are lots of places where you can make more sustainable choices this Halloween. Of course, you don’t want your green routine to take the fun out of this spooky day. I think that one of the keys to getting folks on board with making eco-friendly life choices is showing that not only is it better for the planet, but it’s delicious and festive, too!

Whether you’re just going trick-or-treating or if you’re planning a full-on Halloween shindig, we’ve got you covered so that you can reduce your waste without cutting back on the fun!

Green Trick-or-Treating

Planning to head out and collect candy? Instead of a boring plastic pumpkin, you and the kiddos can make your own candy-collecting bag out of recycled materials. Here are a couple of tutorials to get you going:

Turn a thrifted pillowcase into a customized treat bag. You can make this even more fun by letting the kids embellish their bags with cut out spooky shapes. Either sew them on or attach with fabric glue.

Make a recycled felt trick-or-treat bag. You can find Kunin recycled felt online - it’s made from plastic water and soda bottles that would have otherwise been landfill-bound!

Transform an old tank top into a treat bag: turn the tank inside out, sew across the bottom to seal it up, flip it right side out again, and you’re ready to trick-or-treat! If the tank top is too long, you may want to cut the bottom down a bit before sewing, so it won’t drag on the ground.

Use a basket. Thrift stores usually have pretty hefty stashes of baskets, which are perfect for collecting candy! If you want to get crafty, you and the kids can decorate your baskets to personalize them!

If you’re planning to stay in and hand out candy, you’ve got a great opportunity to make a positive impact. Opt for fair trade chocolates and candies that are sweetened with real sugar. Your local co-op or health food store will have plenty of options, or you can find fair trade candy online. Just remember: a lot of parents will be wary about letting their little ones accept unwrapped candy, so you’ll want to go for “bite sized” treats, unless you want to give out full sized candy bars!

Eco-Friendly Costume Ideas

Store-bought Halloween costumes are often far from green. Usually, they’re heavy on the plastic and polyester, and to keep the price down, they tend to involve sweatshop labor. This year, you can whip up your own DIY costumes, and you don’t even need sewing skills to do it!

Got a little superhero in your life? Make him a simple, felt mask out of the Kunin recycled felt we mentioned on the previous page! You can complete the costume by pinning on a pillowcase "cape" and a felt superhero badge. Voila!

For an easy witch costume, dress your little one in all black, give her a broom, and whip up a witch's hat out of an old coat hanger.

Grab a couple of cardboard boxes from the recycle bin, cut arm holes in one, eye holes in another, and decorate to make a quickie robot costume that you can recycle or compost when Halloween is over.

The key with an eco-friendly costume is to get creative! Hit up your local thrift store to find fun, second-hand elements. You can also look for costumes on sites like Freecycle or Craigslist, or arrange a costume swap with friends to reuse costumes from previous years.

Eco-Halloween Decor

If you’re throwing a Halloween shindig, you’re going to need some spooky-ooky decorations! Sure, you could head to the party store, but most of the supplies you find there are intended to be used once and tossed. They’re also often made from plastic and other not-so-eco materials. With a little bit of planning, you can whip up your own green Halloween decor that will last for more than just one holiday! Here are some decoration ideas to get you started:

10/24/2011

I’m a big subscriber to using whatever you can find to work out: pullups on trees, throw big boulders, flip logs or big tires, jump over things, sprint up hills. As a parent and a minimalist, I’d like to share my ultimate minimalist workout secret: my kids are my gym.

Fellow parents, if you’re not doing this yet, I can’t recommend it highly enough. How are they my gym? Instead of paying hundreds of dollars (even thousands) a year for a gym, I use my kids to get in shape.

How? Every way I can, but here’s a few:

I carry them on my shoulders as we walk around town.

We race each other to the corner, sprinting. Often up hills.

I do pushups with them on my back.

I lift them up in the air — it’s like lifting weights.

I’ll let them hang on me as I do chinups.

We climb and jump around in the playground.

We play with the soccer ball — getting lots of sprints in as we do.

We jump around in the ocean. A great workout.

We wrestle.

We challenge each other to do pistols (one-legged squats) or handstand pushups (what they sound like).Mostly we can’t, but it’s fun.

We do lunges while walking up a hill.

I carry them slung across my shoulders — a fireman’s carry — which is a great workout btw.

I’ll carry one on my back, piggy-back style, while racing another kid up a hill. Yes, I love hills.

More awesome than a gym

So why is this so awesome?

We bond. Instead of spending time away from the kids at a gym, I spend time with them. And get a great workout in throughout the day. It’s two birds, one stone, saving time while helping me bond with my kids.

Work becomes play. It’s not exercise, it’s not a workout, it’s *play*. And that’s a whole different ballgame. Play is fun, it’s challenging, it’s easy, and yet it’s a great way to get in shape.

No cost. OK, kids aren’t cheap — but I have them anyway, so why not use them? I’m saving money and getting fit — that’s all kinds of win.

I’m being a role model. Kid learn most of all from what they see others doing, especially their parents. You can tell them things all day long, but unless they see you doing it, you’re not teaching them much. When we go to the gym, they don’t see us working out. When we workout as we play with them, they’re learning how to be healthy, and that is a gift that will last a lifetime.

It’s a lifestyle. I don’t work out at one time during the day, and then stay sedentary the rest of the day. It’s all throughout the day, every day, which means it’s woven into my life, not a small segment of my life. This is what a healthy lifestyle looks like.

It’s functional. When you do a bicep curl with a dumbbell, you’re making a motion that you never would do in real life — when have you ever lifted something heavy while keeping your upper arm fixed to your torso? Instead, when we lift heavy things, we bend at the knees, and use our legs, our torso, our shoulders, our arms — basically most of our body at once. When I lift my kids, that’s the same motion I’d use to lift anything else. Functional exercise is much more useful than isolated lifts.

Working out using my kids as equipment is the best thing I’ve done with my fitness. It’s fun, so I never want to stop. It’s functional, it’s cheap, and best of all, I get to do it with my kids. I love it.

10/19/2011

I’m incredibly happy to say that. For years (as many of you know) I was in terrible health — I was overweight and sedentary and addicted to junk food and a smoker and overworked.

Today after more than five years of living healthy I am about 65 pounds lighter. I’m leaner than I’ve been since probably high school with the same pants size as I had in high school (31 inches) — while being much stronger than I was back then. More importantly I am fitter: I can run and play sports and hike and do activities of all kinds better than ever before.

How have I achieved all of this? Slow change. I’ve done no fad diets or quick weight loss. I’ve done nothing extreme. Everything is about living healthier and eating whole foods and being active most days. And about enjoying the journey.

Today I thought I’d share a bit about how I eat. It’s not meant to be copied exactly but to inform others trying to make a similar journey. Also see the next post: How I Train.

Overall philosophy

My general philosophy of eating:

I don’t go for anything extreme. I’ve made small changes to my diet over the years and have found this works best: if you try for drastic changes you’ll hate it and won’t stick to it for long. But add a few extra fruits and veggies and it’s not hard. Change soda to water next month and it’s not deprivation.

I eat slowly. OK … not always but most of the time. Eating slowly allows me to fully savor the taste of the healthy food I eat and at the same time eat less while still feeling satiated (not stuffed).

I eat real foods. I try for veggies and fruits and raw nuts and seeds and beans and some whole grains. Sometimes my food is processed but mostly it’s just the stuff you’ll find in the produce and bulk sections of a supermarket (or farmer’s market).

I eat plants. I do that mostly for reasons of compassion (killing animals for pleasure doesn’t feel right to me) but I’ve found it’s also an extremely healthy way to eat. Sure it’s possible to be vegan and unhealthy (eat processed fake meats and sweets) but if you’re a whole-food vegan it’s hard to go wrong. And yes it’s easy to get protein as a vegan.

I enjoy myself. I look for healthy foods I love — berries for example — and savor them. I’ll eat sweets now and then but in small portions and truly enjoy the few bites I have. I have red wine and love it. I drink beer sometimes and it’s wonderful. I have pizza about once a week and it’s delicious. Eating healthy isn’t about deprivation but about finding ways to enjoy yourself while living a healthy life.

My Diet

This month I’ve cut my less healthy choices down to Saturdays — as inspired by Tim Ferriss’s book The 4-Hour Body. That means I only eat pasta and pizza and sweets and beer and French fries on Saturdays. This has gotten me even leaner and I recommend this way of living.

The rest of the week I eat my own version of Tim’s Slow Carb Diet — the Leo version. That means I eat a little fruit and a few whole grains and I don’t eat the meat. I don’t eat fried foods or drink calories (other than red wine at dinner) or eat white carbs (pasta bread rice potatoes pizza).

What I eat:

Beans – lentils and black beans and kidney beans and pintos and soybeans.

Nuts and seeds – raw almonds and walnuts and seeds and olive oil and avocadoes.

Veggies – lots of greens like kale and spinach and chard and broccoli. Carrots and various bell peppers and sprouts and so on.

Fruits – berries and apples and oranges and a little dried fruits like raisins. In moderation.

Whole grains – steel-cut oats and Ezekiel flourless sprouted-grains bread and quinoa (not technically a grain). That’s about it — I don’t eat pastas or whole-grain muffins or the like.

My Meals

My typical day usually goes like this:

Breakfast: Every day I eat steel-cut oats for breakfast late in the morning (usually between 10:30 and 11:30). I cook it and then mix it with flaxseeds and cinnamon and blueberries and raw almonds and a few raisins and maybe a small amount of banana or raspberries.

Lunch: Typically a big-ass salad with kale and spinach and sprouts and avocados and beans and raw nuts and a little fruit with balsamic vinegar. Sometimes I’ll eat a tofu stir-fry with greens.

Snack: If I’m hungry in the afternoon I’ll eat some raw nuts and dried fruit or veggies and hummus.

Dinner: Beans and veggies or a tofu-stir fry or veggie chili with beans. This meal varies. Sometimes the beans will be Indian style or Mexican style. Usually the veggies will be greens like kale or broccoli or chard. Sometimes I’ll have quinoa. Red wine with dinner.

And that’s about it. Over time I’ve found I need less food than I used to. Eat slowly and you’ll find yourself full on less food.

The Results

I used to spread my “cheats” throughout the week — a whole-grain muffin here and some pizza there and beer more than I’d like to admit. But putting everything on Saturdays has helped me be honest the rest of the week.

I honestly enjoy eating whole foods. I enjoy being lighter and leaner. I’ve gained muscle eating these foods though I might focus on building more muscle later in the year.

I run faster than ever. I can do more intense workouts than ever before. I was tested for various health indicators recently and everything was perfect. Eating this way has absolutely changed my life.

Notes

A couple notes to answer potential questions:

Soy is not unhealthy. You might have read various scare articles on the Internet about soy (usually based on misleading articles from the Weston A. Price Foundation) but they’re misinterpretations of science. I eat soy in moderation and try for whole soy in natural forms (tofu, tempeh, edamame, some natural soy milk). I don’t have man boobs and I’m absolutely healthy. Instead of pointing to “scientific” explanations of why soy is unhealthy show me the actual peer-reviewed studies that show that moderate amounts of natural soy (not soy protein isolate) have caused health problems.

You can absolutely get enough protein and calcium and iron on a vegan diet if you eat whole foods and not junk.

Sugar is junk and that includes white flour pasta and breads and French fries. It’s worthless calories. Whole grains in moderation provide nutrients and fiber.

A little meat in moderation is not unhealthy — especially if you choose grass fed and free range. Most people eat unhealthy amounts of meat and eggs and dairy. Those foods in any amount are unethical in my opinion — even if they’re grass fed and free range. Exploitation of animals as objects and their suffering for our pleasure is not compassionate. We don’t need animal products to live healthy lives — as my example shows — so the only reason to eat them is for our pleasure (we like the taste).

10/06/2011

﻿The arrival of autumn means cooler temperatures, darker evenings — and a last chance to get your home ready for winter. Here are twelve ways to get started!

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you’ve probably already noticed the first hints of autumn: a blush of color in the leaves; earlier sunsets; and cooler evenings. The winter constellations are slowly creeping higher in the night sky, and it won’t be long before we’re all involved in the downhill rush toward the holidays.

Spring and autumn are the “fix-up” seasons, as we make ready for big changes in the weather. What you do over the next few weeks can make a tremendous difference to the size of your environmental footprint through the winter. So we’ve put together a few autumn to-do items to get you started. Sharpen your pencil — and start checking a few off your list!

In the home

Checking wall insulation

Check your weather stripping. You should do this twice a year. Look for cracks and deterioration, and verify that door seals are tight.

Review attic insulation, particularly if your home is over 20 years old. This is the area in which you can make the most dramatic savings in annual heating bills. Take a ruler into the attic. If you have less than a foot of insulation, you probably need more.

Seal window air conditioners. Once you’re past warm weather, unplug and seal your window units. If it’s practical, store them. This will also allow you to seal your windows with energy-efficient plastic film.

Replace incandescent bulbs with CFL or LED lighting. Shorter days and cooler temperatures means more time spent indoors. If you’ve not already re-lamped with energy efficient bulbs, now is the time.

Install a programmable thermostat. Smart temperature control can easily save 10% of your annual heating and cooling bills — a significant reduction in your household’s carbon footprint. Basic programmable thermostats can be purchased for less than $30, so you’ll recover you investment very quickly.

In the yard

Start a compost pile. Compost heaps need both green and brown matter to get cooking — but there’s no shortage of carbon-rich leaves in the fall. Grab then while you can.

Consider planting trees. Some varieties do well in the gap between summer’s heat and the real onset of winter. Consult your local nursery or agricultural agent for advice on what sort of trees might be appropriate for autumn planting.

Bring your summer herbs indoors. There’s no reason not to enjoy fresh basil, mint, and rosemary through the winter months — and having some green indoors will remind you of spring. It takes a few weeks to transition herbs to indoor living, so start before the weather turns.

In your car

Most automobile owner’s manuals recommend a switch of engine oil weights between seasons. If you did this last summer, switch to your car’s recommended winter weight as soon as the weather cools.

There’s really no such thing as a “safe” antifreeze, but if you’re getting your radiator flushed before winter, ask for a propylene glycol (PG) formula. It’s less toxic to children, pets, and wildlife than ethylene glycol (EG) coolants.

Do you have a roof rack for carrying summer recreational equipment? Remove it until next year. Roof racks decrease your vehicle’s aerodynamic efficiency and hurts fuel mileage — particularly at highway speeds. While you’re at it, check you car for any unnecessary summer items, such as coolers or picnic gear. No need to burn fuel by carrying unnecessary weight.

Evaluate your tires. Worn tread and improper tire pressure aren’t just bad for fuel economy — they’re not safe, particularly if you live in an area where highway icing is likely. Inspect, rotate, and balance. Whip out your tire pressure gauge at least once a month and check all four corners.

We’ll make this list a baker’s dozen: If you’re shopping for sweaters, jackets, and winter wear, start at your local secondhand store. It’s not just price — though shopping the thrift shop and rummage sale circuit can save your hundreds of dollars — it’s putting perfectly good clothing back to use, rather than consuming fresh resources. You may also be supporting a worthy local charity or civic group with your purchase.

So there’s a start. Once you get into autumn “green-up” mode, you’ll probably think of other small projects. Get to them before Jack Frost beats you to it. And here’s wishing you a rich, warm, and Earth-friendly autumn.

Do you have some autumn tips to share with the PCTG community? Please add your best practices in our Comments section!